USA wants right to board Norwegian ships (Aftenposten)

The USA has asked the Government for permission to board and inspect any Norwegian ship which it suspects of being involved in terrorist activity. However, according to Foreign Minister Jan Petersen, the Norwegian Government has refused to give the USA any such carte blanche. Nevertheless, the authorities are holding talks with their US counterparts in an effort to meet their requirements in another way. The Norwegian Shipowners’ Association says it is confident that the authorities will safeguard Norwegian sovereignty and Norwegian interests in the best way possible. "We do not know the exact contents of the US request, and are therefore unable to comment further on the matter," said Terje Glørsen, who is responsible for safety and environmental issues at the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association.

Heroin flooding into Norway (Dagsavisen)

The Police Directorate is afraid that Norway will see a flood of heroin coming into the country this autumn. The Directorate is now preparing a major offensive to prevent this dangerous narcotic from reaching the streets. With the war in Afghanistan, the supply of heroin has dried up. The positive effects of this development can be read in the capital’s overdose statistics. During the first three months of this year a total of eight deaths due to drugs overdoses were recorded in Oslo. During the same period last year 62 people died of a drugs overdose.

Foss to increase public spending by NOK 5 billion (Aftenposten/Saturday)

Thanks to substantial tax revenues, Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss will be in a position to increase spending on defence, local government, hospitals and public transport by NOK 5 million in the revised national budget. The Government has had an unusually easy time with its revised national budget due to the enormous extra tax revenues which are now flooding into the Government’s coffers.

Jagland’s warning ignored (Dagsavisen/Saturday)

Bjarne Håkon Hanssen (Lab) is ignoring the warning issued by Labour Party chairman Thorbjørn Jagland and has said he wants to do a deal with the Progress Party and the Socialist Left Party to boost hospital funding. "We must create a parliamentary majority in whichever way we can to ensure that the hospitals are allocated more cash," said Mr Hanssen. The country’s hospitals have notified the Government that they will need NOK 2.6 billion to avoid going into the red or cutting the amount of treatment they offer.

"Labour network" slammed by Foreign Minister (Verdens Gang/Sunday)

Jan Petersen, Norway’s Foreign Minister and chairman of the Conservative Party, has for the first time publicly criticized the Labour Party’s role in the Middle East peace process. "This has been about a small, tight knit network of people from the Labour Party, who have been very good at creating myths. This network is now history," said Mr Petersen. The Foreign Minister’s comments hit three people in particular: Mona Juul, Ambassador to Israel and former Labour State Secretary; Terje Rød-Larsen, UN Special Envoy and former Labour minister; and Thorbjørn Jagland, Labour Party chairman and himself a former Norwegian Foreign Minister.

Not as much fun as before (Dagbladet/Sunday)

Kjell Magne Bondevik is struggling to become a popular prime minister again. Only 26 per cent of the electorate say he is doing a good job. Mr Bondevik has now admitted that being Prime Minister is not as much fun this time as it was in 1997. The last time Mr Bondevik ran the Government a whopping 60 per cent of the electorate thought he was doing a good job. "I have had a tough start as Prime Minister, and feel that people have higher expectations of me today than they had in 1997," said Mr Bondevik.

Strike action in the air (Dagens Næringsliv)

A wave of strikes among airline workers could be set off during the current round of industry-wide wage negotiations. The threat of strike action comes in response to plans by SAS and Braathens managements to shed the jobs of around 800 ground service staff in Braathens. The employees are not permitted to take lengthy strike action in protest against the redundancies, but a number of trade unions are considering using the wage negotiations to hit SAS-owned airlines.

Government to allow bigger classes (Aftenposten/Sunday)

The Conservative Party wants to abolish restrictions on the size of school classes. According to the party’s annual conference, this is a matter which local authorities should themselves decide. The Conservatives’ coalition partners, the Christian Democrats and Liberals, think the suggestion is interesting. But Helga Hjetland, leader of the Norwegian Union of Teachers, warned that local authorities would exploit the opportunity of larger classes to save money. Education Minister Kristin Clemet will consider the matter thoroughly before deciding whether to support the conference’s proposal. But her aim is clear. "Our vision is to manage less, but manage better," she said.

Worth Noting

• Poor people and substance abusers will no longer be shoved out of sight in dilapidated slums and run-down hostels. "The Government will be introducing minimum housing standards which the local authorities will be obliged to comply with," said Social Affairs Minister Ingjerd Schou. (Aftenposten)
• Women in male-dominated professions have good reason to fear for their own career prospects if they want to work fewer hours, according to a recent survey. Almost half of women in the Norwegian workforce work part-time. (Dagsavisen/Sunday)
• The first thing Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss did yesterday after being voted in as deputy leader of the Conservative Party was to accuse Labour of betraying the country’s young people. "When you add up what the Labour Party is doing now, it is the opposite of solidarity and it will hit young people hard," he said. (Dagsavisen)
• Progress Party chairman Carl I. Hagen has demanded that the Foreign Ministry not only investigate Mona Juul. He also wants the authorities to carry out a thorough check on Terje Rød-Larsen. (Verdens Gang/Saturday)
• The police still do not know what caused the accident at Våler in Hedmark on Friday, in which four teenage boys lost their lives. The condition of the three who survived the accident is said to be serious, and still unstable. One of the survivors had to have a leg amputated. The teenagers were taking part in the traditional celebrations to mark the end of their final year at school and were driving a specially painted minivan when it ran off the road and burst into flames. (Dagsavisen)
• According to the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature, the Environment Minister should have as much power over the management of the countryside and the environment as the Finance Minister has over the country’s finances. (Aftenposten)
• The Government has laid NOK 100 million on the table and is abolishing import duties on perfume, make-up, toys, sports equipment and over 600 other categories. This is the Finance Minister’s summer gift to consumers. (Verdens Gang/Saturday)
• Norway has exported prefabricated buildings to Israel to the tune of NOK 53 million since 1990. Since 1936 prefabricated housing has been a central element in the creation of Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas. (Klassekampen/Saturday)
• The prospect of Royal wedding guests without a hotel bed to sleep in when Princess Märtha Louise marries Ari Behn in Trondheim on 24 May does not worry Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO). She thinks the ongoing strike action by hotel workers is more important. Ms Valla made her views known when she attended a support evening for the striking members of the Norwegian Union of Hotel and Restaurant Workers. (Verdens Gang)
• Pensioners with money in the bank risk paying three times as much tax as everyone else. Some pensioners face an 80 per cent tax on the interest they earn. The normal rate of tax on interest income is 28 per cent. (Verdens Gang)
• Police in the German town of Herford yesterday closed down Bjarne Melgaard’s exhibition ‘Black Low’. The Public Prosecutor had invoked Section 131 of the German Penal Code which relates to the trivialization of violence. It is more than 80 years since the German authorities censored an art exhibition in this way. (Aftenposten/Sunday)

Today’s comment from Dagsavisen

Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik is not as popular with the electorate as he was last time he held the office of Prime Minister. There are several reasons for Mr Bondevik’s drop in popularity. When the current coalition government came into office, the public was left with the distinct impression that position was more important than politics. At the same time Mr Bondevik did not seem to have the same fire and enthusiasm as he had the first time around. While the Christian Democrats managed to put the issue of ethics and values on the agenda of the previous centre alliance coalition, and succeeded in introducing the additional cash benefit for children under three, the party now seems bereft of ideas and issues it is prepared to fight for. Kjell Magne Bondevik has not succeeded in communicating to the voters why he is part of a Conservative dominated government. The Prime Minister’s most important task is to lead the Government in a manner which both unifies and inspires confidence. Mr Bondevik’s performance on that score is more than satisfactory. Though the three parties have very different political foundations, their political programme nevertheless manages to hang together as a unified whole. Much of the credit for this achievement belongs to Mr Bondevik. Seen from that angle, today’s coalition is working much better than the previous centre alliance, where internal differences of opinion were resolved through public wrangling and cabinet dissent. A competent but unexciting Prime Minister is more of a problem for the Christian Democratic Party than it is for the nation as a whole.